Slides now online from Sony's presentations at GDC include some juicy details about the Playstation 3 and the chips that power it. Among the slides is a high-level block diagram of a PS3 system that shows many of the system components connected as one would expect. But right there among them is an arrow shooting out of the side of the NVIDIA-supplied RSX graphics processor with a label that will raise some eyebrows: "8 Ch. Audio". This suggests none too subtly that the RSX will provide the PlayStation 3's audio capabilities as well as its graphics.
I would be inclined to dismiss this possibility outright, had I not been in the room when NVIDIA's CEO vowed to create a "SoundStorm 2" the very morning the Sony deal was announced...